World Highlights

¤ Samuel Alito was sworn in as a US Supreme Court justice after a divided Senate confirmed him as a second conservative appointed by President George W. Bush in his effort to move the high court to the right. Chief Justice John Roberts, Mr Bush's first Supreme Court nominee, administered the constitutional and judicial oaths in a private ceremony at the court, a spokeswoman said.

¤ President George W. Bush will look to his State of the Union address to lift his political fortunes and those of his Republican allies in a high stakes election-year with control of Congress up for grabs. The president's speech will be delivered to a joint session of the US Congress, where Democrats have been criticising Mr Bush on a range of issues that include the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina relief and a domestic spying program.

¤ Enron Corp. was a "ticking time bomb" in its final months, as top executives lied to the public about the billions of dollars in losses it faced, prosecutors said yesterday at the start of the trial of former chief executives Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling. "To the outside world, Enron appeared to be a picture of corporate success," prosecutor John Hueston told the jury in his opening arguments. "Inside the doors of Enron, things were terribly wrong."

¤ A woman identified as a former postal employee went on a shooting spree at a mail sorting center near Santa Barbara, California, killing six people before committing suicide, authorities said. At least one other person, a woman, was critically wounded in the shooting, which erupted shortly after 9 p.m. on Monday at the warehouse-sized facility in the coastal town of Goleta, about 160 kilometres northwest of Los Angeles, a Santa Barbara County Fire Department spokesman said.

¤ OPEC sealed a deal to keep oil output near a 25-year high and the group's second biggest producer Iran, locked in a dispute over its atomic programme, gave an assurance it would not halt its exports. Opec, provider of over a third of the world's oil, will keep its production limit at 28 million barrels per day (bpd) with prices approaching $70 and worries over supplies from Opec members Iran, Nigeria and energy powerhouse Russia.

¤ Afghanistan received promises of economic and military support from Western nations at a conference in London in return for pledges to fight corruption and the illegal opium trade. Four years after the US-backed campaign which ousted the Taliban hardline Islamists, Afghanistan remains one of the world's poorest countries and security is a major obstacle to development.

¤ President Vladimir Putin said Russia deserved its place as chair of the G8 group of rich nations and critics should accept it was a dynamic player in the world economy. Exuding confidence, he told a marathon Kremlin news conference Russians were living better than before, despite high inflation, and enjoying strong economic growth that was filling state coffers with cash.